Recycling is dubbed a load of old rubbish

Two taxpayers have hit out at bin collectors for failing to collect rubbish and recycling left outside homes in Winnersh and Woosehill.

Both women contacted The Wokingham Times last week complaining Wokingham Borough Council had failed to empty their recycling boxes, and one said the council also occasionally fails to collect rubbish.

One woman, who did not want to be named, from Opal Way in Woosehill, contacted The Wokingham Times after her household waste was collected but the recycling was left.

She said: “Residents have had problems with their recycling collection ever since black bins were introduced years ago.”

The woman said although the boxes are emptied 90 per cent of the time, there have been several occasions where bin collectors have failed to collect the recycling.

She said she reached the end of her tether after the recycling was collected two days late last month.

“Even when the recycling is collected, residents have to clear up the road that is strewn with rubbish.

“Sometimes cars are badly parked and the residents have been told by the council that the truck driver must take down the car registration numbers and report it, which they do not.

“The council said that they have to return the bins to their correct boundary but this does not happen.

“The residents in the street have all been here for more than 10 years but it has been happening all that time. It’s time to name and shame.”

She said her bin is regularly taken to a house 10 doors away and residents are sometimes forced to clear away rubbish themselves.

“Enough is enough. We pay our council tax and we do not get the full service. Why should we live with our road full of rubbish?”

A statement for Wokingham Borough Council said: “The rubbish collectors do visit Opal Way and they will collect if recycling is placed on the kerbside.”

The other frustrated recycler, from Winnersh, said she tried to recycle a cardboard box from a new television but the council decided it was too big.

She said: “Wokingham Borough Council takes great pride in telling us how well Wokingham does when it comes to recycling.

“However, we have just been told that unless we cut down every single piece of cardboard recycling so that it will fit into a black recycling box, then Wokingham’s kerbside recycling team will not collect it, nor will it be collected as part of the standard refuse collection.

“Now we have to drive to Reading to deposit it in the Smallmead Household Waste & Recycling Centre. How green is that? How wasteful is that?”

A spokeswoman for Wokingham Borough Council blamed not removing the cardboard on human error.

“It was an oversight. In normal instances we would go back out and collect it. As long as the cardboard is the size of the kerbside box, it will be removed.”

- Are we recyling enough in Wokingham? And why should it be the council that takes responsibility for it? Click the link below to have a say.